A long journey home

It has taken more than two thousand years for Jews exiled by the Romans to finally return to their promised homeland and reclaim sovereignty.

The Romans may not be a force to be reckoned with these days, but the poisonous seeds which they cultivated are sprouting with increased virulence.

We are fortunate to be living at a time when Jewish sovereignty has been restored, even if it is still only partially. Unfortunately, the struggle to safeguard independence continues to exact a bitter toll of fatalities and seriously maimed and wounded. From the 1920s during the British mandate and then subsequent to 1948, Islamic terror and wars have claimed thousands of military as well as civilian lives.

Despite gestures that included territorial withdrawals and futile, fake accords leading to increased terror and misplaced illusions of fraternity, genuine peace remains a mirage. The Abraham Accords are a glimmer of hope, but those who plot and plan Israel’s demise remain numerous and implacable.

The one constant factor which remains is the age-old animosity, hypocrisy and indifference of most of the international community.

This year, when everyone stands silently and remembers their sons and daughters who have fallen in the defence of the country, we will also have our remaining hostages in mind. Instead of a worldwide revulsion at the barbarity of Hamas and their enablers, Israel is being prosecuted at The Hague. Unlike previous generations, we can at least fight back, and it is this facet that upsets our adversaries so much.

Jews retaliating against those who individually or collectively threaten them is an alien concept especially for a world so used to compliance and submissiveness in the face of hate and terror. It also terrifies some Jews who tremble at the prospect of being accused of complicity in whatever Israel might do.

It is understandable after two millennia of being the eternal scapegoat and of having to flee rather than fight that hitting back and making tormentors pay for their criminality can engender feelings of anxiety.

This has exposed a fundamental fissure between not only trembling Diaspora Jews but also those in Israel who still dream that appeasement will buy the love of our enemies.

During the last eighty years or more, Zionist leaders and decision makers have offered a multitude of plans and agreements which would have enabled the establishment of “two states for two people.” Unfortunately, right from the outset, implacable opposition by Islamic and jihadist religious and lay leaders made any accommodation impossible. One has only to read the recorded speeches made by Islamic leaders over the years, to recognize that nothing short of the complete destruction of Israel was and remains the aim.

The perfidious British slammed shut the gates of the mandate and condemned Jews attempting to flee Nazi Europe to a certain death. Prior to that, they sliced off the eastern part of the mandated territory already promised to the Jews and created an artificial country called Transjordan. Today, the majority of its citizens are descendants of mandated Palestine Arabs. In effect, the so-called two-state solution already exists.

Two of the biggest confidence tricks ever perpetrated are the “eternal” Arab refugees and the claim of Arab/Islamic indigenous entitlement.

The UN and its immoral majority (including Australia & New Zealand) have been sucked into financing an ever increasing number of fake refugees now numbering over nine million. So-called refugee status is handed down to every generation with no possibility of resettlement. Brainwashed to hate Jews and Israel in UNRWA schools and financed by clueless donor nations, these individuals remain victims of cynical manipulation.

The rewriting of Jewish history and the inventing of a substitute narrative has become accepted as the real truth by the same immoral countries that vote against Israel at every opportunity. Whether it is as a result of ingrained prejudice, willful ignorance or plain stupidity, the lie of indigenous authenticity has become an accepted part of international discourse. No matter how outrageous the denial of Jewish historical reality may be the repetition of distorted claims is swallowed by all those who prefer fiction over actual facts.

A perfect example is the latest outburst by PA President for life, Mahmoud Abbas, anointed patron saint of fictional Palestinian statehood.

At a PLO central council meeting held last week, he trotted out this nonsense:

“In the noble Quran and I believe that also in other divine books, it says that the First and Second Temples were in Yemen. People who like reading about religion can check it out.

The Jews say this is ours and that was ours and this is where Solomon’s Temple was. I am telling you a large part of history is falsified. People who read the Quran know this.”

Of course, anyone with the slightest knowledge of Biblical history and archaeological facts knows that Abbas is speaking rubbish. It becomes even more ludicrous when one knows that former Nobel Peace Prize winner and chief terrorist, Yasser Arafat, asserted that “the Temple didn’t exist in Jerusalem – it existed in Nablus. There is nothing there – i.e. no trace of a temple on the Temple Mount.”

Apart from the fact that Abbas obviously forgot to read Arafat’s claims and thus picked Yemen instead of Nablus, his speech to the faithful demonstrates the latest in years of distortion and fabrication. Like Holocaust denial, repeated lies about Arab indigenous authenticity and Jewish fictitious history falls on fertile ground.

Not a peep of protest issued forth from all those countries touting two states living side by side in peace and fraternity.

What we saw instead, apart from a shameful silence, was in effect the validation of the great lie by the European Union and the UK Government.

The EU announced it would fund the Abbas-led PA with US$1.8 billion over three years.

The UK Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister are hosting the PA Prime Minister and committing to recognising “Palestine.” In addition, they pledged £101 million for economic development and support of what is erroneously called PA governance reform.

Neither the UK nor the EU mentioned the “pay for slay” payments made by the PA to murderers of Israelis nor how they were going to ensure that this latest pot of taxpayers’ money will not be filched and diverted to terror purposes.

By remaining silent in the face of blatant revisionist fables and showering the liar with cascades of funds those who purport to support Israel are in actual fact once again stabbing it in the back.

It has been a long and treacherous road back from exile to reclaimed sovereignty.

Every step of the way has been hard fought and at the cost of enormous sacrifices.

It is best summed up in this short explanation that I read recently:

“The story of the Jewish People is against all logic. It’s a miracle. No other nation in the world survived 2,000 years of exile, inquisitions, pogroms and the Holocaust and kept dreaming about the Land of Israel. After 2,000 years people who were broken (a third of the nation was wiped out) built up a country. With seven Arab countries trying to eliminate them, in nearly 80 years they show the world how to defend themselves and are leaders in medicine, healing, technology and agriculture.”

As we celebrate Yom Ha’Atzmaut this year, we also celebrate the miracle of our rebirth and look forward to the prophesied time when universal peace and justice will prevail.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.